Brit charged with hacking US Fed's computer servers

A British man has been charged with hacking into the US Federal Reserve computer servers, stealing the personal information of users and publishing it online.

Lauri Love faces up to 12 years in prison on charges of computer hacking and aggravated identity theft.

Love is alleged to have been part of a collective of hackers from around the world which, between October 2012 and February 2013, gained access to Fed servers and stole confidential information.

Prosecutors say that Love and his fellow hackers picked the Fed after scouring the Internet for servers running a particular program containing a vulnerability that they could exploit.

Having discovering that some Fed servers were running the program, he used a sequel injection to gain access and stole the names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers of users of the computer system, posting the information on a site that he controlled.

Love is already facing other hacking-related charges, accused of breaking into the systems of the US military, Nasa, the Environmental Protection Agency and FBI, costing the government millions of dollars.

At the time of the Fed hack, Anonymous claimed to have published the bank data as part of its OpLastResort campaign in protest against alleged government persecution of Internet whizkid Aaron Swartz, who had recently committed suicide.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara says: "We place a high priority on the investigation and prosecution of hackers who intrude into our infrastructure and threaten the personal security of our citizens."